Its too damn hot to go out walking during the day, so for some exercise, and because it needed done, I mowed the yard last night and was soaked to the bone sweaty half way through.

Speaking of Half Way through, the PTO cable decided to leave the party, so before I could finish the back yard, poof no longer mowing. It's a common problem where a tiny metal stranded wire meets the large spring, it just let go. It's $20 on Amazon or less for something from Shampoo in Guangzong, or $47 from JD.

Since its a easy but PIA job I'm going to see if the close by dealer has it in stock, it says they do online, and it needs front tires, I can buy them from the dealer at $50 each, pretty steep but I can get them today, and then another $100 for them to mount them on the rims.

While I'm in there doing the tires I may end up having to replace the front spindles, the tolerance between the solid wheel bearings and the spindles is pretty loose and over time they wear a flat spot on them. Once I pull the wheels I'll know if I need spindles, if so that's another $100. Plus need to see if I have grease because that is what takes up the slop.

Ordered a set of 4 wheel bearings, going to replace the solid bearings with nice sealed ball bearings, $70 for the kit on Amazon and that includes the 4 bearings and new caps.

So all in all the PTO cable has gone from $47 to $370 pretty quickly, good thing I did an oil change last month or you could
add it to the expense.

BTW if you need small equipment videos to show you how to do some things, and tips, tricks then check out the One Armed Mechanic on utoob. He's really good and explains things well, everything I'm doing is on a video and easy to watch then go do the work.

Here is the video on changing the PTO cable, and it links to the others on changing tires, putting on new spindles.

Uuugh. Yard work SUCKS. That's speaking from someone living in the high desert, so I don't even have as much to do as people at lower altitudes.

Thanks for posting. I found the big spring laying on top of my deck that was busted off on my X500. But it seemed like everything was working as I finished when I found it. So I am going to have to investigate more.

Thanks, HRK. While I don't have a John Deere with a PTO issue, I have to say that the video quality of this channel is vastly superior to that of many other channels with similar content. His narration is clear and straight to the point and the hints about potential issues you may encounter along the way undoubtedly save a lot of time and aggravation, even for someone fairly mechanically inclined.

I've subscribed to his channel and while I hope I never need it, the odds are good that at some point I will.

On my list of things to do tomorrow is replace the drive belt on my mom’s mower for “the upper 40”, which shredded itself a couple weeks ago. Of course, I found a random pulley up there when I was mowing 6 weeks ago, but everything seemed to be working fine with no abnormal noises or vibrations, and a quick inspection seemed normal. Color me suspicious at finding more problems than just a belt though…

Welcome to my world...

I feel lucky my Cub Cadet only grabbed a stick and threw the drive belt the other day by comparison. I was expecting a trip to TSC when the blades quit…

quote:

Originally posted by PHPaul:
Welcome to my world...

Yea, at first I thought this was going to be another one of your posts.

Great camera work in that video too. I’m sure he has a lot of followers. Thanks HRK